Plymouth Theatre Review

Easy to Follow: 4

Family Friendly: 1

Must see: 3

Title: 2:22 A Ghost Story

Venue: Theatre Royal Plymouth

Date: 9^th February 2026

‘2:22 A Ghost Story delivers exactly what it promises: a supernatural thriller with moments of tension, humour and audience friendly scares. The cast are confident, polished and cohesive, working well together to tell the story and the technical design is superb, with sound and lighting doing the bulk of the work atmospherically speaking. The narrative unfolds cross a single night, through a series of episodical scenes, at a dinner party, all creeping towards the titular moment of 2:22AM. Structurally, the play is clear and accessible, having the ability to expertly convey the story and navigate the moments of high tension in a way that doesn’t outright terrify but keeps the audience on their guard, and often, jumping in their seats!

The cast is strong, with several standout performances. Shvorne Marks as Jenny delivers an emotionally convincing performance, imbuing her character with a precise mix of vulnerability and quiet contemplation and intensity. Her actions feel natural and instinctive rather than over the top, which it would be easy to fall into with the supernatural subject matter. I think her performance was the most emotionally convincing of the night and she successfully carried the audience’s emotional investment in the piece. She brings genuine weight to a role that could easily slip into cliché, and I was thoroughly invested in her story. James Bye, better known for his on-screen role of Martyn Fowler in Eastenders, brings a grounded authority to his role of Sam, anchoring the production in realism, offering calm scepticism that rallies against the plays more supernatural elements. His naturalistic approach makes the sceptical views of his character feel credible and rooted in reality providing a strong counterbalance to the heightened moments.

The character of Lauren, however, is more divisive for me. The accent felt jarring and distracted me from the flow of the dialogue and action. Her whole character came across as rather grating and annoying. However, you cannot deny that Natalie Casey injected the role with energy and humour and was far from ineffective. There is no denying that Casey uplifts the show bringing momentum to the pace and flow of the action. As much as the character annoyed me, the show would not work without her lively dynamic and Casey did a great job at easing moments of tension by bringing humorous relief that balanced the scarier aspects of the show.

Technically the show is highly accomplished, as I mentioned earlier the show heavily relies on its technical aspects, particularly with sound and lighting to do a lot of the heavy lifting atmosphere wise. The sound and lighting design is creative and slick particularly in the way it punctuates and concludes the episodical structure of the scenes and guides the audience through shifts in tone and marking the build-up to the final moment of 2:22. AM. Where the show falls slightly short is in its scares, don’t get me wrong – there are bits that will make you jump in moments of tension but many of the shocks and scares feel manufactured rather than earned. The scary moments that worked best were grounded in phycological unease and the building of tension and it didn’t feel forced or faked. the scares that were the most effective were organic and I felt the show was doing itself a disservice to add in unnatural jump scares just for the sake of it, as it distracted from the story a bit as well as dampened the pace in places.

2:22 A Ghost Story is a solid, professionally delivered piece of theatre. It offers an enjoyable night out with strong performances and an impressive technical design but sometimes lacks the pace and depth it needed to truly haunt its audience. I was hoping to the scared, but it fell a little short in that regard. It’s clear from the natural jump scares in the script that with a little tweaking of the action and a little more work on creating authentic fear within the audience this show could be truly spine-tingling!

Reviewed by Ami Philpott

*Gifted – This theatre review was written following a gifted ticket to the performance. However, all opinions and views expressed in this review are entirely that of the reviewer and the review has not been influenced in any way by the provision of the ticket. Our commitment remains to provide an honest and unbiased assessment of the experience.